Thursday, May 6, 2010

Russian Hacker 'Kirllos' Not in New Zealand

A Russian Facebook hacker is not based in New Zealand, say New Zealand police following a two-week investigation.

Reports that the hacker known as Kirllos was living in New Zealand and attempting to sell the login details of social network website users were wrong and the hacker had no link to New Zealand, Detective Senior Sergeant John van den Heuvel of the National Cyber Crime Centre said on Tuesday.

It was reported that Kirllos offered the user names and passwords of 1.5 million Facebook users for between $A27.61 and $A49.47 per 1000 accounts sold, and he did this via an underground online forum.

Buyers were told to contact him through the ICQ instant messaging service, which listed his address as New Zealand.

However, Kirllos was traced back to Saransk, Russia, about 630km east of Moscow.

"The only connection between him and New Zealand is that he changed his underground forum profile to that of a female from New Zealand," Mr van den Heuvel said.

"He is still in Russia and there is no information to suggest he has ever been to New Zealand. Russian police are now investigating," Mr van den Heuvel said.

Police had spoken to Facebook's security team, who also believed Kirllos had never been based in New Zealand, he said.